Archive

Bob9113 writes “Ars Technica reports that Derek Khanna is getting axed over his memo detailing the conflict between laissez-faire-oriented free market ideals and the regulatory monopoly that is copyright. ‘The Republican Study Committee, a caucus of Republicans in the House of Representatives, has told staffer Derek Khanna that he will be out of a job when Congress re-convenes in January. The incoming chairman of the RSC, Steve Scalise (R-LA) was approached by several Republican members of Congress who were upset about a memo Khanna wrote advocating reform of copyright law. They asked that Khanna not be retained, and Scalise agreed to their request.’”

First time accepted submitter Vanderhoth writes “I’m currently serving as a new member of a board for a not for profit organization. The board currently has a few other members, and a couple of vacant positions. One of the issues I’ve noticed since joining the board is the method in which they conduct business is very out of date. The member that maintains our web presences (Bob) has developed a system over the last ten years to allow us to store documents, such as agendas and minutes on a website server.

Some of the big issues are:

1.) The system is very disorganized, there are documents from the late 90′s that aren’t relevant, but have to be sifted through to find more current stuff.
2.) Often documents are not where they should be and are difficult to find.
3.) No one except Bob really knows how the system works.
4.) No one really wants to use the system because of the monster it’s become.

My concern is if Bob decided to leave the organization no one would be able to maintain the existing system and we would be scrambling to put something new in place. I feel, for what we want to do, Google Docs would be an excellent platform for collaborating and sharing documents. The other board members, except Bob, have agreed with me, but are worried that bringing the issues with the existing system may cause offense and ultimately cause Bob to leave. Other than being overly vested in a system he developed, Bob is an important part of our board and a very valuable member.

We’re already having a difficult time finding members to serve on the board so it’s very important that we don’t lose any existing board members. I’m hoping that I can convince the Bob to start supporting some Google docs objects on the site and try to wean him off his existing system to something a bit more manageable and collaborative that can be passed on to new members and maintained easily.

I don’t want this to turn into old dogs and new tricks. I’m not that far behind Bob in years and can appreciate the difficulty of being told it’s time to give in to something more modern. I’m wondering how the situation could be approached tactfully so maybe Bob will see how much easier a new system could be for everyone, including him.”

Bob the Super Hamste writes “The BBC is reporting on a new law in Venezuela that effectively bans the commercial sale of firearms and ammunition to private citizens. Previously anyone with a permit could purchase a firearm from any commercial vendor but now only the police, military, and security firms will be able to purchase firearms or ammunition from only state-owned manufactures or importers. Hugo Chavez’s government states that the goal is to eventually disarm the citizenry. The law, which went into effect today, was passed on February 29th, and up to this point the government has been running an amnesty program allowing citizens to turn in their illegal firearms. Since the law was first passed, 805,000 rounds of ammunition have been recovered from gun dealers. The measure is intended to curb violent crime in Venezuela, where 78% of homicides are linked to firearms.”

Bob the Super Hamste writes “The BBC is reporting that the UK’s new Draft Energy Bill (PDF) avoids banning coal or gas powered plants. The bill would guarantee profits for new nuclear and offshore wind plants by putting a levy on people’s energy bills. The bill does not mandate a statement that minsters had previously made about having totally clean energy within two decades. The government states that provisions within the bill will ensure a balanced diverse energy mix as well has stating that future emissions from gas powered plants will have to be captured and stored. The bill also aims to increase competition in the UK energy market by making it easier for new competitors to become connected to the grid. Joss Garman of Greenpeace states: ‘By failing to set a clear goal for carbon-free electricity by 2030, ministers are opening the door to a dangerous new dash for gas that will put up both bills and carbon emissions, and increase our dependence on imported fuel. This means families and business will be exposed to rocketing international gas prices. The fastest and cheapest way to bring down bills and carbon emissions is by ramping up energy efficiency but Ministers have totally failed to deliver on this.’ Additionally it would appear that the guarantee of profits for for new nuclear power plants may not be legal as there is a ban on subsidies for nuclear power under European law and the UK coalition government agreement” Note that wind projects are getting profit guarantees and not just nuclear.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) last night by a vote of 248-168. In the days leading up to the vote, opposition lined up drummed up awareness for the bill while the groups supporting the bill steadily pushed ahead. In the end, 112 Congress members cosponsored the bill. Major technology corporations also lent support along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Did your representative support CISPA? See the list below.

Twenty major tech companies have sent letters supporting CISPA along with major U.S. industry trade groups including the Bay Area Council, TechAmerica, 11 financial trade associations and TechNet. These companies and groups represent billions of dollars in American industry, dollars that members of Congress will need to eventually be re-elected. Below we have aggregated the names of every single Congressional cosponsor of CISPA along with the links to their personal websites. The list is organized by date of stated support of the bill, starting with the first round of Congress members that supported the bill when it was introduced in November 2011. The first round had 28 official cosponsors. The majority of the 112 sponsors offered support from January 18 through April 17.

CISPA went through the mark up process in the Committee on Intelligence, of which the bills two primary authors, Representatives Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger, are members. Amendments included language the would protect citizens from damage caused by the sharing of information as well as adding the term “utilities” to the list of private sector industries that can share cyber threat information with the federal government. The addition of utilities, such as water, electric and gas companies, was seen as a boost to the bill as such utilities are part of the critical infrastructure of the United States and are targets of malicious hackers. The House of Representatives then voted for the amendments before passing the final bill and sending it to the Senate and ultimately the White House. Is your Congress person on the list? See who supported CISPA below.

steveb3210 writes “Physicists have demonstrated that making a decision about whether or not to entangle two photons can be made after you’ve already measured the states of the photons.” Here’s the article’s description of the experiment: ‘Two independent sources (labeled I and II) produce pairs of photons such that their polarization states are entangled. One photon from I goes to Alice, while one photon from II is sent to Bob. The second photon from each source goes to Victor. Alice and Bob independently perform polarization measurements; no communication passes between them during the experiment—they set the orientation of their polarization filters without knowing what the other is doing. At some time after Alice and Bob perform their measurements, Victor makes a choice (the “delayed choice” in the name). He either allows his two photons from I and II to travel on without doing anything, or he combines them so that their polarization states are entangled. A final measurement determines the polarization state of those two photons. … Ma et al. found to a high degree of confidence that when Victor selected entanglement, Alice and Bob found correlated photon polarizations. This didn’t happen when Victor left the photons alone.’

OverTheGeicoE writes “Recently, TSA’s ‘Blogger Bob’ Burns posted a rant against a cupcake on the TSA blog. Perhaps it made you wonder if TSA and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, really understand what we’re saying about them, especially online. Well, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, we now know a lot more about how they monitor online comments aside from ‘Blogger Bob.’ EPIC has received hundreds of pages of documents regarding DHS’s online surveillance program. These documents reveal that DHS has contracts with General Dynamics for ’24/7 media and social network monitoring.’ Perhaps it will warm your heart to know that DHS is particularly interested in tracking media stories that ‘reflect adversely’ on the U.S. government generally and DHS specifically. The documents include a report summary that might be representative of General Dynamics’ work. The example includes summaries of comments on blogs and social networking sites, including quotes. Then again, you might remember J. Edgar Hoover’s monitoring of antiwar activists during the Vietnam War, which certainly wasn’t for the protesters’ benefit.”

theodp writes “Paul Miller has some advice for user interface designers: Don’t be condescending. ‘The Ribbon in Microsoft Office products,’ complains Miller, ‘is constantly talking down to me, assuming I don’t know how to use a menu, a key command, or an honest-to-goodness toolbar.’ Miller’s got some harsh words for Apple, too: ‘And of course, there is the transgression of the century: Apple’s downward spiral into overt 1:1 metaphors. The physical bookshelf, the leather desk calendar (complete with a torn page), the false-paginated address book…these new tricks are horrible and offensive [and likened to Microsoft Bob]. They’re not only condescending and overwrought, they’re actually counter-functional.’ So, how does Miller cope while waiting for his UI knight in shining armor? ‘I recently switched my Windows 7 install over to the Classic Theme‘, Miller explains, ‘which is basically Windows 95 incarnate, just with all the under-the-hood improvements I’ve come to rely on. I really like it. It feels right, and if it isn’t beautiful, at least it’s honest. I wish there was a similar OS 9 mode for OS X.’”